


The Map Of The World

by MercuryGray



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Aftermath, American Civil War, Anatomy Lessons, F/M, Kink Discovery, Male Friendship, Period Typical Attitudes, Relationship Advice, newlyweds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 19:14:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10646283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryGray/pseuds/MercuryGray
Summary: Henry is seeking counsel on a matter of some importance. A counterpoint to RedFlagsAndDiamonds "A Lady's Fancy."





	The Map Of The World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RedFlagsAndDiamonds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedFlagsAndDiamonds/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Lady's Fancy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10512342) by [RedFlagsAndDiamonds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedFlagsAndDiamonds/pseuds/RedFlagsAndDiamonds). 



> I have this strange compulsion, when writing Henry and Emma, to always look at things from both of their points of view, which is why when RedFlagsAndDiamonds first posted her "A Lady's Fancy" I had this urge to write the whole scene from Henry's point of view. Well, here it is.

She wouldn't meet his eye as he left that morning, her gaze fixed on the knitting in her lap, her words short and to-the-point, the entirety of her body stiff and formal.

****

And why should she, when he had used her so vilely! And for the sake of _a coat_!

****

He had resisted the uniform, initially, saying that it was an empty gesture, that his own well-mended frock coats would do well enough when any uniform was required, but the Army would have its pomp and circumstance, and the coat, with its clusters at the shoulders for the captain's rank he would never use, arrived at Mansion House wrapped in linen, along with the hat and gloves and boots that should attend with it, should he ever be asked to go on parade. 

****

Anne Hastings had beamed giving him the package, handing it to him as though she were bestowing a kind of knighthood on him, her disappointment palpable when he would not put it on. "I'm sure Mrs. Hopkins will like the ring of it -" she said with one of her sly smiles. "Captain Hopkins."

****

He had never much cared for anything said while Miss Hastings was smiling like that.

****

"Oh, has it come?" Emma asked when he arrived home that evening, later than his usual time, the candles already pooling in their holders, the sky outside quite dark. Dinner would be cold on the table, but there was little to be done about it - there'd been a mother arriving late in need of prayer and he'd not wanted to rush her through her mourning. He knew it wouldn't bother Emma - and his unexpected treasure seemed to cheer her even more. "Try it on, Henry, please! All of it!"

****

How could he refuse her, when she smiled so? She went to bank the fire in the kitchen and he took off his familiar coat and waistcoat, the buttons easy in their holes, and sat down to untie his brogues, setting them aside so he might do battle with the tall, polished cavalry boots. His trousers appropriate tucked and bloused, on went the coat, still stiff at the shoulders and smelling of new wool and the linen in which it'd been wrapped. He did up a few of the buttons, turning around so that she, returning to the parlor, might see the full effect. "Well?" he asked with a bemused smile as she stopped in the door. "How do you like Captain Hopkins?"

****

Emma's face had been hard to read, her gaze distant and her lips...slack, as if in wonder, transported somehow to some far place, and when she spoke, her voice was low and suggested songs that Solomon's lover might have sung. "Very much," she murmured, taking first one step and then another until the little pearl buttons of her bodice brushed his black-covered ones, the very tips of her fingers exploring the surface of the wool.

****

He could not help but kiss her then! And after...God in heaven, after. When he had preached about the mastering of passions his mind had always run to anger, but this was a different beast than what he knew, the blood running and the mind weak to sense, to logic, to...to decency!

****

There were little pearl buttons in the corners when he'd finished, and a jagged edge ran up one of her petticoats where it'd snagged on his boot. "Leave it," he'd said when it tore, and she'd done as he ordered, hands working at the busk of her corset, unshuttering the steel eyes and fanning it away from her so he might fill his hands with her hips, her buttocks, her breasts. She'd been naked as Eve and just as beautiful, her hair worked wild from its pins by all their kissing, around her shoulders like a veil, though no modesty attended with it. And that he should have lain down and...and urged her like that, when he had stripped her like a whore and bid her … attend his lusts!  For they were  _ his _ lusts - she should bear no blame in it. Was it the rank that worked upon him so, declared him open to the wantonness of lesser men? 

****

And, adding insult, bid him do the sinning  _ twice _ ?

****

The text for this week's sermon swam before his eyes now, Paul's letter to the Romans, the pages had turned with the breeze from the window and he did not know what was in front of him now. 

****

_ For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. _

****

The only face he wanted to conjure before him was Paul's, the bearded prophet pronouncing doom, but all he could see was his wife, his lovely, beautiful wife, golden in the candlelight of the parlor. 

****

She'd cried aloud, when he was in her, sounds he'd never heard her make before when they were abed, and now to think on it, there had been a kind of private agony around her face, hands pressed to him, her spine arched the way a body jerked in fever, eyes closed as the sound emerged from parted lips.  Had he hurt her, somehow? Damaged her, even, torn her as he'd torn the petticoat? There were all sorts of demons abroad in his mind now, there would be no children and she would be forever in pain because of his untamed carnal urges, their marriage would be in tatters and all of this would be the vengeance of God visited swiftly upon his unclean servant.

****

Vengeance he could live with - at least that would be justly and fairly given. But that he should be the cause of any suffering of Emma's...

****

Answers were required - and none to be furnished by the likes of Saint Paul.

****

* * *

 

Jed Foster did not think he had ever, to the best of his knowledge, seen a grown man blush. 

****

And yet here he was, and not entirely sure whose cheeks were hotter, his own or those of the man seeking his counsel. If he believed in the Almighty he might have uttered a prayer - but even a lightning strike from heaven wouldn't have helped him with his embarrassment.  

****

And, he mused, clear and present evidence for a vengeful deity wouldn't have helped the Chaplain in this exact instant, either.

****

He'd joked enough with Mary about what that marriage bed must have been like, but he'd never guessed - three months, and she had not -- that he should not know when she --    
  
The diagnosis was quite plain, when Henry recovered enough of his sense to explain it all in complete sentences.

****

He would have laughed, if he did not think it would undo Henry. Patient, pious Henry, who only wanted, as he said, what was best for his young bride.  _ Oh, my friend, you have not even touched the surface of what is best for her, if you only learned of this now. _

****

His mind was having trouble keeping pace.  _ Focus, Jed, focus _ . Structure was required. He strode over to the bookshelf, pulled down a volume, consulted the index, opened to chapter and verse and laid the volume on Henry's lap, imagining an entire auditorium of listening students discussing the finer points of an anonymous woman's anatomy for the purposes of general study, not the intimate regions of his friend the churchman's wife -- or any other woman of his close acquaintance, for that matter. (And nothing at all would be offered about the source of the knowledge he was now sharing; he would remain mute on exactly which classrooms he himself had gained this knowledge in.) Observing the chapter heading and the engraving under it, he felt his student cringe. 

****

_ Onward, Christian soldiers _ , Jed’s mind supplied irrelevantly.

****

"This entire region," (indicating the attendant illustration) "Is called the vulva, which is divided into several parts, those being the labia majora, the outer fold, and the labia minora, the inner fold, each surrounding the primary generative organ..."

****

* * *

 

Henry was late coming home again.

 

There was no reason for it tonight, or rather, no good reason. He'd lingered at this task and that until he ran out of little errands, and then took the long way home, delaying the inevitable return to his front door, and his wife.

 

The house was quiet, no light in any window he could see. Perhaps she'd gone to bed. Henry's hand felt foreign on the doorknob, his key too loud in the lock. The parlor was dark, but there was light, still, in the little dining room. So she had waited for him.

 

Suddenly the darkness of the front room made sense - of course she wouldn't want to wait in the parlor, after...

 

The room looked bare, with just her in it, sitting at one end of the table while his dinner cooled at the other, the plate and napkin a little island at the end of a mahogany sea.

 

"I thought you'd forgotten the way home," she said, by way of greeting, rising from her chair and laying aside her sewing so she might offer her cheek for their customary kiss. He gave it, almost mechanically. "Did you finish writing your sermon?"

 

"Not quite," he admitted. "Paul's letters sting when they've a mind to." He considered saying why, and thought the better of it - that was his cross to bear, not hers. He settled into his chair and contemplated his soup a moment - cold, of course. He wouldn’t argue with it.

 

"Henry, I owe you an apology." He looked up, set down his spoon. Emma's face was fixed with determination, her hands laid flat against the table as if she were bracing herself for something terrible. "Not for...what I did, for I'm not sorry for it - but for how it made you feel. I put you in a terrible position -" The word  _ position _ jarred in Henry's head, thinking of this afternoon's lecture and Jed's oblique references, never quite fully explained, to how many opportunities were afforded by the phrase, and he struggled to keep his face calm. "And I shan't do it again."

 

"What...you did? Emma, I..."

 

"You'll say it wasn't my fault," she maintained staunchly, "but it was, and I'll admit to it. Your wife shouldn't be an ...ungovernable jezabel."

 

"I don't accept it." Henry's voice could not help but be hard, though he meant nothing in it but love.  The table lay still between them, and he freed himself from the chair to come and kneel next to her chair, and take her hands in his. "I don't accept it because it isn't true. I...came home meaning to make the same confession you did - that it was my fault, and that I hoped I had not caused you pain. Because your husband is ungovernable, too, when he's a mind to be- in this and ...other things," he added with a pained smile, caressing the knuckles of her hands with his thumbs. “But you were not hurt, Emma - tell me true.”

 

“No,” she said, and meant it. “And you…” She could not give her thoughts a voice, but her hopeful eyes suggested  _ And you... liked it?  _

 

“Yes,” Henry said.  _ God in heaven, yes. _ He smiled at her, trying to think of all the things he’d meant to say, all the tired arguing that he’d gone over with Jed when their lesson had finished, about what was allowed under what was writ in the Solemnity of Marriage, that it was instituted that man might not have reason to sin. Was one allowed to  _ like _ one’s duty, allowed to find pleasure (that word again!) in the doing of it, permitted to do what one wished only because one wished it?  _ It was her choice, too,  _ Jed had reminded him.  _ It seems to me there’d be a sin only in taking what she wouldn’t give,  _ he’d said, and Henry knew he was sincere in that; there was no laughter in his eyes _.  _ “I’ll keep my ungovernable jezabel until Judgement Day. Though I will say,” he could not help but add, “You've utterly spoiled that uniform for me. We had all better pray I never have to wear it, or I'll be in no fit state to be seen."

 

His insinuation, given so intimately and brazenly to her ear, made her laugh at last, pressing her body into his in comfort, all bridges mended. He closed his eyes a minute and relished the feeling of her body pressed to his own, the feeling of her breathing and the smell of her clothes, her hair. "So have you any other ...fantasies I should know of, besides intimate relations with officers in tallboots?" He asked as gently as he could, not entirely able to keep all the mischief out of his voice.

 

"Have you?" Emma asked back, a little of her brazen self returned. The question made Henry stop, considering. Had he?

 

And then, natural as breathing, there was a smile. "I had a rather a fondness for knights saving noble ladies from besieged castles as a boy," he admitted, watching his wife's smile widen in thoughtful delight.

 

Dinner, it appeared, would simply have to grow cold on the table again.


End file.
